As WP's senior editor, I edit review and preview articles, attempt to keep up with the frantic pace of Rainier's news posts, and keep our reviewers on deadline, which is akin to herding cats. When I have a moment to myself and don't have my nose in a book, I like to play action/RPG, adventure and platforming games.

Advertising

'I of the Enemy' - Updated Demo Available NOW

I of the Enemy - a unique experience of innovative gameplay at a very competitive price. Alien races have been raging war on each other in a far-off galaxy. An alliance has formed between the lowly Lokob and the technically advanced Y'dray in an attempt to stem the onslaught of the evil Unath. The player takes on the role of the Commander of Armies and Colonel Verkkal (voice over by Ian McNeice, famed for his role as Baron Harkonnen in Dune) is his trusted friend and field commander, in charge of his race's contingent.

Combat takes place on 3 different planets - Ackinaen, Elyea and Gha'adath - all with different terrains or with the map editor you can build your own planet.

A PC game that contains unique features in this sector and caters to both single player campaign and up to 8 multi-players over the Internet or a LAN. It is a science fiction, real-time strategy war game in the genre of Command & Conquer and Warcraft and will blast its way onto the retail scene in a simultaneous launch across all territories across the world in Spring 2004.

Headed up by Mark Temple, who has worked as a programmer writing all facets of game code since 1993 as well as real-time applications such as dynamic positioning systems for oil drilling ships, and a team of highly experienced programmers and artists, the final touches are being incorporated into the game code.

Mark is also currently serving as an air traffic controller in the US Marines and was called back after the events on September 11 and much of the game's strategy and tactics has been based on the training he received in the military.

He comments on the launch of IOE, "After going to many discussions at the Game Developers' Conference in San Jose and other venues, we decided that we would not go the traditional route of selling the rights to a large publisher, but retain our independence and the IP to our game - some must think us mad that we can compete. However, the problem for most small developers is how to get the knowledge of launching across different territories throughout the world with the varying languages, currency, cultural differences, legal and structures. In a chance encounter, we met Karen Shillcock, who was responsible, in part, for the set-up of the International Divisions of both THQ and Midway, and that this could be replicated for us with her experience."

Mark continues, "The emphasis of the game has moved away from gathering, mining and building and concentrated more on interesting tactical problems where the player has more of an opportunity to employ solutions that we designers might not have thought of." "Reinforcements arrive according to an Order-of-Battle (which may not be reliable due to poor intelligence) via a temporal gate (the Alliance) or port facilities at which shuttles arrive from orbiting transporters. There has been an effort to keep the number of units on the board smaller than in other games of this type, so that more emphasis may be placed on manoeuvre. This makes it more important for the player to achieve favourable match-ups between friendly and enemy unit types, rather than just waiting for overwhelming numerical superiority. There is also an emphasis on alternative mission types where the goal is not simply the annihilation of the opposing side (i.e. convoys, delaying actions, infiltration), and others where annihilation is not possible and victory is measured in terms of delay and inconvenience inflicted on the enemy. There are realistic facets of combat including: unreliable timing of when reinforcements arrive, inaccurate description of enemy capability (bad intelligence), extensive use of indirect fire (artillery) to discourage fixed defences and large formations."

"We have also kept the min. spec. quite low with PC Win95/98/ME/2000/XP, 64 MB of RAM, 15MB or 120MB of HD (depending on type of installation), 8 x CD ROM drive, DirectX 7 or later. Game Spy is hosting the on-line multi-player tie-up world-wide and one of the technical game features is the use of Scitech's innovative MGL 5.0 graphics library."

"There are 25 varied missions to complete over 3 different planets/environments with a variety of plot twists. For the future, we will add extension packs and are already working on a new engine for a 3D sequel to IOE."